Little Beast, Chevy Chase, Washington, DC

As I mentioned in my latest on Rosemary Bistro, Jon and Nancy Breul were in town for our annual New Year’s Eve Observed dinner. On the day of the dinner, the Nancys were off on a busy, high organized day with sundry groups of friends. Jon and I eventually got together, chatted, and after a while wandered up to 5600 Connecticut Avenue for lunch at Little Beast.

I reported on the pizza at Little Beast nearly two years ago, and you can read that report here. I failed to include a view of the interior in that post, so here’s a shot of it, bright and busy as usual.

And to complete the record, here’s the exterior.

While I’m at it, here’s Jon with the eponymous little beast.

That’s Jon in the red sweater. There was a short line for a table, but we were seated and the server appeared promptly with menus. We looked at the beer list, ordered, and, thus fortified, looked at the menu again and ordered a pizza. Specifically we split a sausage pizza, described on the menu as containing “tomato sauce, signature cheese blend, Italian sausage, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, ricotta cheese, [and] chili relish. Voila!

Well there’s most of it. Jon is an impetuous lad. And that’s a great outer ring with good bread flavor and a nice chew. As you can see, the toppings had been applied liberally and bunched at the center. The thin ends of the wedges thus were overloaded. That made for some difficulty in folding the pizza — for those who care deeply about folding pizza slices. Jon managed.

I don’t care much about folding. I care deeply about the flavor of the pizza, and I mastered the use of knife and fork some years ago. This was a good pizza — good sauce, good Italian sausage, and good quality ricotta. The onions were caramelized to a tee, but if I can offer mild constructive criticism, I’d have spread the onions around a bit. The concentrations created a mushy area with a dominant flavor and texture. I think caramelized onions are best as an accent rather than as a star, onion soup being a rule-proving exception.

That evening eight of us gathered for our 40th (give or take) annual New Year’s Eve Observed lobster dinner. (See my latest Rosemary Bistro post.) It’s a lovely dinner and we were all set for an evening of unwonted elegance.

Shortly after 6:00 pm, with guests arriving within the hour, a minion of the Government of the District of Columbia shut off our water. We’d received a door hanger alerting us that our water would be shut off for 8-10 hours on December 9, two days after our dinner, but the DC government surprised us by moving with dispatch even more unwonted — and unwanted — by shutting it off two days early, giving that date one more reason to live in infamy. What could go wrong? I raced to our local Safeway and bought 10 gallon jugs of water and distributed them strategically. Flushed with that success, I double-checked our stock of available liquid alternatives to water, and found them abundant. The evening was a great success, and we didn’t have to do the dishes until the next day.

There’s nothing quite like good food with good friends, and that’s true whether you’re eating lobster or pizza. And it helps to be in a locally owned neighborhood spot. Give Little Beast a try.

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